The Virgin Mary and the Christmas message

Writing a column for a national newspaper can be a trial, not least when one has a reputation as a controversialist to keep up, so it should have occasioned but little in the way of surprise that Giles Fraser, the liberals’ favourite vicar, should have written a column in which he explained how the story of the virgin birth ran against the grain of Christianity. I have written enough for the press to accept the excuse that no one is responsible for the title a sub-editor gives to his or her piece – it is the sub’s job to stir up trouble if there is any in the offing, so it is necessary to get beyond that strap line to see what he is getting at.

After mentioning the early stories that Jesus, far from being born of a virgin, was the product of a possible rape, he goes on to speculate that the story of the virgin birth may have been a reaction to such rumours. It may be that typology and the Old Testament are no longer taught at seminary, or it may be that the young Fraser was out protesting against ‘that sort of thing’ when they were, but for his benefit and that of anyone reading, let us remind ourselves that the virgin birth was one of the signs foretold of the coming Messiah. Our very own Jock MacSporran (a man with a good religious education I judge) wrote the other day:

Elijah told Ahaz to ask for a sign, to assure him that God would help him in battle. Ahaz refused, because he was a nasty piece of work and he knew it; he didn’t believe that God could possibly show him any good sign. God gave him a sign anyway, the promise of the virgin birth. In his case, the sign was a sign of judgement.

This is an integral part of the Christmas story – but curiously, it seems to be missing from the discussion.

Isaiah 7:14 is taken up by Matthew 1:23, and in the Septuagint Isaiah always uses the word for virgin. That, for the benefit of Giles Fraser, is where the reference comes from, it is one of the many Messianic signs which the Gospels use to identify who Jesus really is. It has nothing to do with anyone thinking ‘sex is dirty’.

It may come as a shock to Fraser, but quite a lot of other people have pointed out that the Incarnation is central to Christianity, and that the kenosis of the Word is, literally, awesome; still it is good that he was attending class that day, but he really should acknowledge he is being derivative here, which certainly takes away from the controversy, but is more useful to the casual reader. But I can’t quite let it end there. He asks ‘what if he was?’ in terms of Jesus being illegitimate. It is hard to believe that the great Anglican tradition of scholarship has sunk this low, and one must just put it down to the anfractuosities of journalism and allow Anglicans to have the disclaimer that ‘real theologians are also available’.

The ‘what if’ would be that the Mary was not with child by the Holy Spirit. I will leave Fraser to figure out what message this would have for the idea that Jesus was the Word, the Second Person of the Trinity. It may be that he does not believe in that either, and that he really thinks the world could be saved by the illegitimate offspring of two humans, but if so, whilst one would not be surprised, one would be dismayed. Maybe that stuff about ‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God’ all went above his head, but for the rest of us it is central to the Christmas message. In the spirit of the festival, let us hope Giles Fraser gets a ‘theology for dummies’ book for Christmas.

It is men like him who drove me from the Church of England – if he really cannot see the implications of his silly comment then someone should suggest a refresher course – surely seminaries must still cover such topics? Possibly not, now abandoned in favour of climate change and gender theory? And people wonder why I became a Roman Catholic?

So your the one those ideas followed in the RCC? Well we have 78 degree F temps today and will probably top 80 tomorrow. I can hear them now . . . and I love it and hope to possess beachfront property soon without paying anything for it. 🙂

Yes, typology with the old is extremely important. In the spirit of Flannery O’Connor, “If there is no Virgin birth (For that matter the incarnation), to H–L with it.”

Of course, this sort of talk is praised by liberals and atheists because it produces more of the like. Modernism with empiricists by their nature reject miracles as not possible and reject this miracle forces me to use a term I do not like to use and will not use it very often… it’s heretical.

Virgin birth is a hard pill to swallow, even for priests and preachers.

Good sister Mary was a virgin, till she started pumping out more kids. The scriptures a clear about this. She knew not her husband UNTIL after Jesus was born. But there are those who don’t let the words of the bible get in the way of a good fable.

Anyone who knows anything about Jewish customs knows that on the death of an eldest son, other children take care of the mother – there are no such children for Mary, which is why Jesus’s last request is for John, his cousin, to look after her.

As my piece shows, there are a whole lot of places in Scripture when ‘until’ does not mean what you claim.

This is why it is a good idea to study the Bible and not make it up as you go along.

What a shame you fail to understand it. It has its funny side, it is like watching someone who thinks they know a book bluffing their way through a test. You don’t read Greek, you rely on an inaccurate English translation and you think you know the Bible – you really have the right avatar.

Bosco, I studied Classics in college; there’s an old saying: “Knowing enough Greek to be dangerous.” How proficient are you with the language out of curiosity to comprehend its meaning in the Greek language?

At 2 Samuel 6:23, for instance, we read, “And Milchal, the daughter of Saul, had no child until [eos] her death.” Are we meant to read from that that she had children after she died? Well, why then assume that in the case of Joseph and Mary it means something which runs counter to the belief of the Church through the ages?Joseph At Genesis 8:7, we read that Noah “sent forth a raven; and it went forth and did not return till [eos] after the water had gone from off the face of the earth.” We know from Scripture that in fact, the raven never returned to the ark. It says that it did not return “until after,” but in fact, it never returned at all. The Scripture says that “Joseph knew her not till after…”, but in fact, he never “knew” her at all. In another example, the Bible says, ‘The Lord said to my Lord, ‘Sit at my right hand until [eos] I make Thine enemies Thy footstool” (Mark 12:36). Does this mean that Christ will cease to sit at the right hand of the glory of the Father once His enemies have been overcome? Hardly. The Matthean verses refer to the fact that Jesus was not the son of Joseph – whatever the crowd in Matthew 13 thought.

If you had read my piece, you would have seen it is based on an examination of the Greek word and its meanings.

So, explain why Mary was handed to a cousin and not one of her ‘other children’? What’s that, you can’t? Of course you can’t. You simply refuse to learn anything – can you really be this ignorant, or is it an act? If so, an Oscar is yours.

Hey, don’t get your panties in a bunch…..I just believe what scripture says. Don’t get mad at me. Its say Jesus has bros and sis, so, who am I to argue with it. Id rather go down marked as believing scripture than one who goes down not believing.

No, you don’t, you read and you fail to understand. You don’t understand a dang thing. If you believed Scripture you’d love it, and you’d try to know more about it. You wouldn’t just take an English translation and think that was the be all and end all.

I am guilty of accepting King James translation. That said…..ive been a Christian a long time, in my eyes. Ive gone over the greek and Hebrew translations with lots of experts. In the end, the KJV is excellent. You think im stupid. Well, youre rite. But at least I didn’t fall for some virgin queen worship. How stupid and tribal is that?

The bible is more than clear….Mary had lots of kids. Children were social security.

in Jesus’ ministry where his fellow townsmen derided Him as merely a local: “‘Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon? And are not his sisters here with us?’ And they took offense at him” (Mark 6:3; see also Matthew 13:55–56).

We both know there are many passages that speak of Jesus brothers and sisters. Its not central to salvation. But when one has the mindset that scriptures don’t mean what they say, it can underline a deeper contempt for the scriptures and He who authored them.

No, what is clear is you do not understand what you read. If you are right, please explain why the other children dod not take care of their mother? There are not many passages, and those who exist use the word adelphos which can equally mean cousin. Your ignorance is invincible in so far as even when you are proven wrong you ignore it.

You have the mindset of an ignorant Californian and you are as far from Christ’s mindset as it is possible to be. Your refusal to engage with the Scriptures and try to understand them shows who has the contempt for their author.

I see your human reasoning, and ive heard it befor, a million times. Remember, I used to hang out in Catholic Answers Forums.

Just between you and me, Jesus was the Law and the scriptures. He and his boys ate with unwashed hands. Oh gosh….that was against the law…..oooouuuuuweeee, so was picking corn on the Sabbath, heaven forbid Jesus break the law.

You have to do contortion to justify your worship of a virgin queen invented by the Roman state run religion.

Say, ive been meaning to ask….what has your religion got against sexual relations.? Everybody has to be celibate of a virgin. Whats up with that? I say the Marys are obsessed with sex.

The English translation of ἀδελφός ‘adelphos’ as ‘[blood] brother’ in the Gospels sits uncomfortably with its application to Lot and Abraham, and to Laban and Jacob in Genesis. In fact the semitic languages had no variant words for brothers, cousins and nephews, and the same word was used for all (cf Genesis examples cited), then translated into Greek as ‘adelphos’ leading to this ambiguity.

Ben – so you clearly know more about the languages than I do. Could you clear up the issue of what the Hebrew says in Isaiah? Was it simply ‘young woman’? Or was it ‘virgin’? The issue here (of course) is whether Matthew was devastatingly bad at languages or just plain dishonest if he stated ‘virgin’ when the Hebrew meant ‘young woman’.

Ben – I’m inclined to believe that Mary did have other children after Jesus, who were the brothers of Jesus referred to in John 7v5. (a) I don’t see any theological reason why she shouldn’t and I don’t see that the grammar excludes the possibility. Since it isn’t excluded, (b) the narrative of John 7v5 has more force if the lack of belief of Jesus brothers comes from very close family (i.e. it has more force if they really were brothers rather than simply cousins).

To me, it is also quite uncharacteristic for the Jews to not track the bloodline of the offspring or family from which a prophet might have sprung. It seems inconceivable to me that the bloodline of Mary would not have been traced right to our day had it the genetic material from which the body of our Lord sprang. But to Dan Brown it would make a great mystery novel . . . but purely fictional.

Chalcedon – I’d say this is a rather weak argument, since there is nothing in that text which excluded taking the whole family with them. In fact, they don’t seem to have been looking after their children awfully well, since they had absolutely no idea that Jesus had gone to the temple and was teaching there.

There isn’t really anything in Scripture either way on this matter; there is nothing to suggest that he didn’t have a normal family life, growing up with (half) brothers. The force of John 7v5 is stronger if we take ‘brothers’ to mean ‘brothers’.

Of course, you are partly agreeing with Giles Fraser when he says ‘Jesus didn’t much care for the whole nuclear family thing’ if you insist that Jesus was an only child and not part of a normal family (with several children).

I don’t think I am. It is clear that there was an extended family of which he was a part – James and John were not just Apostles, they were also cousins. Jewish families were not the sort of tight nuclear families we have become used to in the West since contraception became endemic.

It seems to me, as it has to others, strange to imagine that a righteous Jewish man would wish to have sexual relations with the mother of the Messiah. The universal view has been contrary to the one you espouse. It may be that it is only since the late Reformation that anyone has known anything about Christianity, but I am happy staying with what has been believed in most places most of the time.

Chalcedon – this issue is not central to anything; it doesn’t matter at all to any aspect of Christian theology whether or not Jesus had (half) brothers, or if he was an only child.

James and John were cousins of Jesus and at no point were they referred to as brothers. Brother seems to have a different connotation here; James the brother of the Lord is denoted brother to distinguish him from James bar Zebedee (who was a cousin).

I don’t presume to know what Christians thought about this either before or after the reformation; I also don’t see anything either way in Scripture indicating God’s will in the matter (whether he wanted Jesus part of a family with brothers and sisters, or whether he wanted Jesus as an only child). Joseph’s views on carnal activities with his wife would presumably be dictated by the divine will in this matter.

By the way – what does contraception have to do with ‘nuclear family’? I thought that contraception was for fornicators who didn’t want to get caught, but perhaps I’m missing something.

I agree, and have often wondered why some of the reformers thought so much of themselves that they decided to disturb the settled view of the Church; but as they did on other matters, that may the only explanation one needs.

we now tend to have very small families in the UK and Europe – I doubt that being the result of continence within marriage 🙂

Well, you know, I prefer not to add to Scripture – whether or not Jesus had (half) brothers isn’t a question that is answered definitively one way or another, whatever the ‘reformation fathers’ may (or may not) have said.

John 7v5 does have more force the closer these ‘brothers’ were to Jesus – and they don’t include his cousins John and James bar Zebedee.

This is the problem with reading only in translation. The Greek leaves it open, and in the context in which the Church reads it, that has always meant non-uterine siblings. The addition comes from Protestant Englishmen insisting on their reading.

Perhaps you are correct here; I only ever read Scripture in translation. I don’t have enough time for New Testament Greek or Hebrew – I have enough trouble with modern languages and don’t have time for it.

I can’t imagine why anybody would insist on a particular reading – it really isn’t at all important for any vital point of Christian theology.

Like the Inquisition, Virgin Queen worship is the invention of the cult of Rome, the state run religion. Not one other single solitary group believes Mary remained a virgin. Come on, the bible said she had kids, for heaven sake.

Do you never get bored with lying? Quite apart from anything else, the witness you give is to the father of lies. The Orthodox Church believes Mary remained a Virgin, as does the Anglican Church, as do the Lutherans. As I said, if there was an Oscar for getting it wrong, you’d win it.

Youre saying only language scholars can understand gods word? You’ve been listening to your celibate holymen again. Even little children understand the words of the Lord. Learn of Him, for he is meek and lowly of heart.

Also, since John ‘from that hour took her unto his own home’ means that neither one of them stuck around to remove Christ from the Cross and put Him into the grave. So I guess sombody else did that. So lets be consistent here, Clown.

You wave the law around. The law is going to crush you like a grape. haven’t you heard the good news? Jesus fulfilled the law. You need to either find a new religion or open the door to he who fulfilled the law. hes rite outside your door.

Jesus fulfilled Jewish law. Im not evading. Didn’t you read Jesus picked corn on the Sabbath? David ate showbread. The law is going to grind you to dust. The saved have a new law, written on our hearts, not in stone, as your heart is. You wave the law around, you want men to be bound to the law. Oh, but Jesus would never go against Jewish law, because my sick sad religion says so. Weve got a virgin queen we have to prop up.
So, why did Jesus have to give Mary her own son? Well, he didn’t.
One fine day, when you meet Jesus, all this Mary stuff will fade away. Im confident that will happen.

I was simply telling you that in entrusting Mary to John Jesus was doing what the law said – Mary had no other children. The only people who believe anyone worships Mary are as ignorant as you. Should you ever really meet Jesus you will find he loves his mother. What view he will take of those who called her a kesbian, who can say?

I was making fun of a drawn picture of two females who looked like they were ready to kiss. It isn’t really Mary and Eliz. But if there was a caption that said who they were supposed to be, I wouldn’t have made that joke. I have repented of that.

Good to hear it. After all, how could anyone expect you to read an extract from Luke mentioning Mary and Elizabeth and know that the two women in the picture were Mary and Elizabeth? Any normal person, yes, you, no.

When the even was come, there came a rich man of Arimathaea, named Joseph, who also himself was Jesus’ disciple:

58 He went to Pilate, and begged the body of Jesus. Then Pilate commanded the body to be delivered.

59 And when Joseph had taken the body, he wrapped it in a clean linen cloth,

60 And laid it in his own new tomb, which he had hewn out in the rock: and he rolled a great stone to the door of the sepulchre, and departed.

Hey Servus, you didn’t know this? I thought you were some big bad know it all, or at least you want other to think you are. I guess you teach your students out of that useless catechism of yours. that explains why you don’t know diddly.

Im confident Joseph and his friend took it down. Guards were there. No one got to the body without permission, and joseph was the only one on record to get this permission, not that its such a big deal who took it down. Then, maybe it has some significance. But I love it because I got to bust good brother Servus for trying to throw mud on me. He shouldn’t throw it into the wind. (;-D

What are you trying to imply, my brother? Youre not trying to imply Mary took it down and left him lying there, are you? Its not important who took it down. Its only important that good brother Servus attempt to besmirch me blew up in his face.

There were roman guards at the cross, or tree. Joseph went to Pilate himself to get permission to take the body. Im sure if Mary or someone else went to Pilate, it would have been mentioned.
Boy, you false religion people sure do like to strain at gnats.

We seem to have wandered off topic here. The question is not whether Mary had other children (she didn’t, but it’s not the most important question). It is whether we believe the story of the Incarnation, that Jesus was born of a pure virgin, or whether we accept the nasty little ideas of Giles “Ooh, look at me, I’m being controversial again” Fraser, that Our Lord was nothing more than an ordinary illegitimate human child.

It seems we have found an (alleged) Christian whose views are even more wacky than brother Bosco’s.

Lots of people don’t believe in the virgin birth. Just like lots of people don’t think god created the earth in a day. Or Noahs ark. Or walking on water. Lots of people don’t believe in a god. This shouldn’t be news to anyone.

I read it. That was good of you to point out how even a big time holyman doesn’t even believe the bible. Why doesn’t he get fired? That’s because none of them believe it. Same goes for prot preachers and Mary holymen. Lots of them secretly don’t believe it.
That’s why me and my fiancée are getting, excuse the pun, hitched ,in the Anglican Church. Anything goes there (;-D

When in doubt, shocking will sell papers. Some really thrive on proving they aren’t Catholic by disrespecting the Blessed Virgin Mary. It happens. I ceased to be shocked about this bit of nastiness quite a few years ago. God bless. Ginnyfree.

Chalcedon – an Anglican priest disputes a rather fundamental part of the Christian faith in a column for the Guardian sounds a bit like a ‘Dog bites man’ story (i.e. no surprises there).

The Christmas story does have a darker side (the sign of the virgin birth was, after all, announced in Isaiah 7v14 in the context of God’s judgement against Ahaz) and therefore we shouldn’t find this sort of rejection very surprising.

In the case of Giles Fraser, he clearly wants to create a God in his own image. He probably likes the traditions and trappings of Anglicanism, but only if he can conform the Anglican church to his own modern trends. He clearly has an obsession with sex (and he wants lots of it, without the inconvenience of God’s judgement against fornicators) – but the main thrust is that he wants to remove the dark side of the gospel message (that there is something evil about our nature that we have to be saved from).

"I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend." J.R.R. Tolkien <br>“I come not from Heaven, but from Essex.” William Morris